The crowd at the hearing, boisterous at other times, was utterly hushed as Newtown’s Neil Heslin, father of 6-year-old Newtown victim Jesse Heslin, testified, the father’s grief pouring across the room like a tsunami wave. Most of the Republican members of the committee had left, the right side of the committee seating area conspicuously empty, but no one who was in the room could forget the father’s broken voice as he described saying goodbye to his son for the last time on the morning of last Dec. 14.

“It was 9:04 when I dropped him off with a hug and a kiss. ‘I love you and I love Mom too,’ he said to me. ‘Goodbye.’” And that was the last time I saw him, as he ducked around the corner.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (AFP photo)

“I remember the hug he gave me … he just held me, and he rubbed my back. … and Jesse said, ‘It’s going to be alright. Everything’s going to be okay, Dad.”

“He was six and a half. The day he was born was the happiest day of my life. The day he died was the saddest. … I was at that Sandy Hook firehouse until 1:30 in the morning — Sen. Blumenthal was there, Governor Malloy was there … that night I went home without my son to an empty house.”

“My son was brutally murdered,” he said tearfully. “He was the love of my life.”

“I fully support the Second Amendment,” he said. “(but) I had a little boy I devoted my life to.”

He said that Jesse was curious about guns — he’s gotten a BB gun the previous Christmas and Heslin had taught him gun safety — and the night before he died he was looking at a gun magazine.

Heslin said on one page was three pictures — one of a Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle, one of a Glock and one of a Sig-Sauer — the three weapons Adam Lanza used the next day.

Heslin said that when he came to the Capitol Wednesday morning, he saw a guard with an assault weapon. “Protecting our Capitol, protecting us now,” he said. “But I can’t believe somebody could bring one of those into an elementary school.”

The second Newtown witness. Dr. William Begg, EMS Medical Director at Danbury Hospital and a Newtown resident, said he was at the hearing for one reason: My goal is to tell you that banning assault weapons will make a real difference.”

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Capitol Confidential gathers the best coverage of New York politics and puts it all together. Each section - Capitol, The State Worker, New York on the Potomac, and Voices - represents a unique facet of the political scene. The Capitol section features coverage from the Times Union Capitol bureau. The State Worker is dedicated to state worker issues. New York on the Potomac offers news of interest to New Yorkers from Washington. And Voices features the best of everything else, pointing you to columnists and bloggers from across the Web.